


Duality

by KannaOphelia



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Jealousy, Mixed up families, Sibling Rivalry, Slight incestuous implications, Twins, school story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-30
Updated: 2005-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connie is finding it difficult being left down in the Fifth, away from her adored twin, until Bridget happens along. Obsession takes queer paths, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On the first day of the new term, Connie turned confidently to assist her twin with her bags, as she had every single first day since they had toddled off to prep school together.

"I'll take that, thanks," Ruth said briefly, and pulled her bags out of Connie's hands. She strode off down the platform in the most un-Ruthlike way, and Connie stood in the middle of the platform, her legs quivering in the most alarming manner, as her twin was swallowed up in a cheerful bunch of fifth formers. She knew she should follow Ruth and join the group of her friends – but were they really friends, now? Sudden doubts assailed her. Being left down in the Upper Fourth should not mean so much, and she'd liked Darrell, Sally and Bill so much, but…

She was pulled out of her dream by a sharp laugh at her elbow, and turned to look into the palest grey eyes she'd ever seen, the irises almost as colourless as the whites, except for their sooty rim. Put in with a smutty finger, Connie's memories of her nurse filled in.

"Left you for dry, has she?" The girl stuck out a hand. "Bridget Linton. And you're Connie Batten - I've noticed you around, although I don't suppose you would have noticed a mere Lower Fourth member. We're in the same boat now, so we may as well pal up." She turned her back with the same abrupt movement, and headed for the train, tossing back over her shoulder, "After all, we have something in common."

Connie trailed after her, with an odd sense of unreality at the situation. She wasn't the kind to follow others, feeling helpless. She always had her little shadow of a twin to fuss over. But Ruth didn't require her help now, that was clear. Connie blinked hard and followed her new friend. She suspected Bridget was not the type to have patience with tears.

"What do we have in common?" she asked eventually, as they claimed corner seats and arranged their luggage.

Bridget flung herself down on her seat and put up her feet in flagrant disregard of the rules. "Sisters lording it over us in the Fifth." She tilted her head on one side, smirking, and Connie had a sudden image of little Ruth waving a hand and issuing decrees. She dissolved into sudden giggles, and a little of her loneliness lifted with it.

She was still not quite sure how or why, but she seemed to have acquired a friend.

By the time they'd settled in at school, Connie was quite sure she shouldn't like Bridget at all, let alone as much as she found herself doing. Everything about the girl was sharp, from the bones of her face to her tongue, and she was not in any way an acceptable substitute for Connie's sweet, gentle twin. But there was something fascinating about her, about the focussed anger she carried with her as shield. Bridget was furious about something she didn't deign to mention, and that anger gave her the courage to ignore rules as if they didn't apply to her, running down the corridors and cheeking the mistresses.

Whispering at evening prayers.

Connie had been lost, not in spiritual contemplation but in the sight of her twin. Ruth looked pale, surely her strained smile was false, and she fumbled with the pages of her prayerbook, trying to find the correct reading. Why didn't anyone help her? Connie ached to go over and turn to the page for her. She always found Ruth's place before looking for her own.

A painful nudge in the ribs recalled her to Bridget's presence beside her.

"That's her." One of those narrow little hands gestured at the Fifth form, at a handsome girl with a sullen mouth, someone who had not been in the Upper Fourth with the twins.

Connie was so shocked that Bridget was whispering in front of Miss Grayling, and in prayers at that, her tongue froze to the top of her mouth. Finally, she shot out of the corner of her mouth, "Who?"

"Moira. My bitch of a sister."

Connie had never heard that particular word used without reference to dogs, but some instinct, or the concentrated venom with which it was spoken, told her that it was inappropriate to use it at prayers. She coloured and stared hard at her prayer book, and felt Bridget shake with repressed laughter at her side. She was so confused and embarrassed that she almost forgot to eat up her twin with her eyes, checking her for signs of tension, of worry, of missing her.

Bridget slipped her arm into hers as they left the hall, ignoring Miss Grayling's disapproving eye. "You're all right, Batten. A bit of a goody two shoes still, but you've spirit hidden there somewhere. We'll get along just fine."

Connie, whose arm had been aching for her sister to slip a hand into it, found herself smiling and comforted despite herself. It felt frightfully nice to be given approval.

Her loneliness hit her full force again on the return to the dormitory. She stood helplessly for a moment, facing the fact that no one needed her. Bridget was sitting on the bed, working on a tangle in her long fine hair, and on impulse Connie took the comb from her.

"Let me. I always do Ruth's hair."

She expected a protest, not a lazy, amused smile. Bridget sat back, and Connie began to work her comb carefully through the hair, pale golden instead of the almost buttercup shade of the twins' hair. She untangled the knots, picked up a brush and drew it through Bridget's hair until it shone like watered silk, then divided it in two and plaited it, finishing with perfect bows.

"I could get used to being fussed over like this," Bridget remarked, when Connie finally put up the brush, ignoring the giggling of some of the others in the dorm.

Connie's restlessness came flooding back as soon as the satisfaction at Bridget's pretty hair had dwindled. She jumped to her fee. "I want to check on Ruth. She's never unpacked for herself before."

Bridget sighed, if that was the correct word for an angry puff of air. "Oh, for goodness' sake. She doesn't need your coddling anymore. She's too grown up for you, remember? Look, if you really want to do some more unpacking, I haven't nearly finished myself."

"I'm going," Connie said stubbornly. "She might need me."

Bridget grumbled, but she pulled on her dressing-gown and followed, waiting at Ruth's dormitory door. To her credit, when Connie came out in tears, there was no hint of I-told-you-sos. She washed Connie's face, and took her back to their own dormy, flipping an impudent chin at the remonstrances of the dormitory monitor.

"You're all right, Connie," she whispered again. "I'd drop dead of shock if Moira ever wanted to do anything for me like that. Your little cow of a Ruth doesn't know how lucky she is. If you ever want to get your own back on her, or any of those stuck-up fifth formers, just let me know."

For the first time in her life, Connie failed to leap to her twin's defence. That night, she lay awake and felt guilty over her lack of loyalty, but… Bridget was the only friend she had in the new Upper Fourth. Everyone else was paired off in their own friendships.

Bridget, despite her sharpness, was the only one who showed signs of needing Connie. That was enough for a start, at least.

The two girls were fast friends before the week was out. At least having a friend eased the aching, bewildered sense of loss she felt without her twin, and Bridget never complained with Connie made her bed for her or brushed her hair. She never complained, either, when Connie put a supporting arm around her on walks or pulled her along by a linked hand. In fact, she was affectionate in return in a way that slightly unsettled Connie, given that it was directly at odds with her new friend's prickly attitude towards everyone but Connie herself. When she thought about it, Connie was proud that the girl who detested everybody else liked her enough to link hands or sit so close she was almost on her lap. Mostly she simply took it for granted that Bridget would fill the empty space by her side.

She was dimly aware that the others laughed or whispered at their demonstrations, but she didn't care a jot more than she cared about the realisation that her companion was distinctly unpopular in the form. She'd always longed to cling to Ruth like that, but Ruth had been so queer about things lately, pulling away from her and looking at her with the corners of her mouth pulled in tight. Bridget was so much more satisfactory in that way…

No, of course she wasn't more satisfactory in any way. Ruth was sweet and wholesome. Bridget was too acid to be either.

Connie didn't stop trying to see her sister whenever possible, enduring snubs with repressed tears and reddened cheeks, but after each rejection there was Bridget to hand out bitter comfort in the form of gossip and bile, laden with spite and with an unholy glee at the failings and sufferings of others. Especially her sister. Bridget hated Moira in a black, passionate way that appalled and fascinated the older girl.

"Don't you – don't you love her at all?" she ventured at last.

Bridget looked at her with scorn. "Love Queen Moira? You have to be joking."

"But – she's your sister. You should love your sister more than anyone else in the world."

Bridget leaned back on her bed, her queer eyes fixed speculatively on Connie. It was strictly forbidden to be in the dormitories during the daytime, especially to sit snuggled together on the same bed, but Bridget always claimed the common room lacked privacy.

"Being my sister never made Moira care tuppence for me. Your Ruth is just the same – yes, she is," she reinforced, as Connie shook her head. The hand on Connie's shoulder tightened almost painfully. "Being in a different form doesn't mean she can't spend breaks with you, instead of with those bitches in the Fifth form."

"You're wrong." Connie stared at her hands, wanting to defend Ruth as well as her old friends… Friends. What a joke. Darrell and Bill and the others hadn't exactly been breaking their backs seeking her out this term. Bridget was Connie's only friend now.

Bridget shrugged. "Maybe. Oh – don't pull away. I don't want to quarrel about your precious sister. You can't blame me for wanting you to love me best now, can you?" She leaned closer, draping herself over Connie's shoulder.

Connie bit her lip. Bridget wasn't Ruth, and that was all there was to it. But Bridget's warm weight on her back felt nice, and so did the soft kiss planted on the side of her cheek. Her new friend had her points.

Her new friend also quarrelled with everybody in the form except Connie, who would stand back, awed and rather impressed as Bridget spat insults and threats at the other girls. Bridget behaved entirely differently towards Connie herself, at least until the second week of term, when she came up to the dorm to discover her friend in riding gear, pulling her boots on.

"Where are you going?" Hands on hips, suddenly narrow light eyes.

"Riding," Connie said, vaguely surprised at her friend's tone. "With Ruth. We generally go riding Thursday afternoons, with Bill and Darrell, and Clarissa, lately." She stood and picked up her bowler.

Bridget's mouth was a pale pink line in her face. "Let Ruth go with the other fifth formers. You're myfriend now. We'll go together."

"You don't even ride."

"I can learn."

"Don't be silly," Connie said impatiently. She was a good rider, and her bedroom at home was lined with ribbons. She had no intention of trotting meekly beside a beginner. Besides… Ruth had taken her sleeve at breakfast, asking her if she would come. Perhaps she was sorry. Perhaps she missed Connie as desperately as Connie missed her…

Bridget slapped her hard across the face, so hard the bowler slipped from Connie's nerveless hand.

They stared at each other for a shocked moment, as Bridget began to tremble so violently Connie's anger dissolved into alarm. She caught her just before she fell.

"My temper… I can't control it. I'm so sorry. Don't hate me, don't, don't…" She burst into violent tears.

"It's all right." Connie pulled her close, rubbing Bridget's arms just as she rubbed Ruth's when she woke from nightmares. "It's all right, dear."

She sat down on the bed, hugging the hysterical girl close, and almost forgot to worry about what Ruth would think, or about if she was supposed to give up all her riding now. But this was different. Bridget was distraught, she'd be more reasonable another time. She kissed Bridget's sleek hair, and quieted her as if she was a fractious horse. By the time the storms of sobbing had died down, it was too late to think of riding.

The next morning at breakfast, Bridget clung to Connie's arm so hard it hurt as they went to take their places. When Connie turned at Ruth's hand on her shoulder, Bridget swung with her without releasing her grasp.

"Where were you, yesterday? I missed my ride." Ruth didn't look accusing, only puzzled and faintly reproachful. Connie supposed she had been so grateful for the offered ride,for a few crumbs of attention from her twin… Anger burned in her, fuelled by Bridget's watching grey eyes.

"Bridget wanted me. Why didn't you go with Darrell and Bill as usual?"

"Darrell had to take the lower forms in lacrosse."

"Bill, then?"

"She'd already gone off alone with Clarissa. She always does now, for some reason."

For some reason, Bridget seemed to find that innocuous statement intensely funny. Her shout of laughter echoed down the hall, gathering reproachful looks from mistresses. Connie turned to ask her what the joke was, but she caught the laughter herself, and she didn't resist when Bridget pulled her away towards the Upper Fourth table, still shaking with mirth. She caught a glimpse of Ruth's confused, hurt expression, but for the moment it meant nothing more than Moira, glaring across the room at her own sister.

"You're a queer kind of girl," she told Bridget eventually, when she caught her breath.

"Don't I know it." Bridget sparkled triumphantly at her. "And you're showing backbone. That's my girl."

Connie reddened with pleasure, and went back to her breakfast. She didn't look across at the Fifth table once


	2. Chapter 2

Connie was so happy for the next day or so that she almost forgot to brood on missing Ruth. The nagging ache was surprisingly easy to ignore, except at prayers and meal times, when her sister was forced on her attention and the pain would flare up again, as if her sister had raked her nails over a nagging wound.

At other times, Connie was content, a bright hard contentment that centred around her new friend. Bridget was pleased with her, and showed it in a multitude of ways, from allowing Connie to fuss over her, reknotting and straightening her tie and smoothing her hair several times a day, to openly walking hand in hand with her in flagrant defiance of school custom. Connie no longer had any thought for what the other girls thought, the lot of stupid Fourth formers that they were. Bridget was the only one she gave tuppence for.

They ran into a knot of Fifth formers in the corridor one day, when the members of the Upper Fourth almost certainly should have been at sewing, not wandering aimlessly towards the courtyard. Connie, hypersensitive to her twin as always, noticed Ruth's gaze fall to their linked hands, and the way her mouth tightened at the sight, as her old friends somewhat uncomfortably greeted her. Awkward, having a lower form friend, she supposed.

The other sister concerned, Moira, seemed even more annoyed, her handsome face darkening and her jaw setting as she glared at the lower form girls. Bridget obviously noticed her sister's reaction, her sharp pale eyes darting to Ruth's face and then Connie's. She dropped her friend's hand, and Connie had barely a moment to feel embarrassed and relieved before Bridget's arm slid around her waist instead, hugging her close to her side.

Ruth expelled her breath sharply and pushed past, followed by the others, most of whom looked rather bemused by the display, even if Bill's mouth at least was twitching. Connie made to go after her sister, but Bridget's grip tightened, and she hesitated. So, Ruth disapproved of their friendship, and was jealous. It hurt her to have her sister displeased with her, but the pain was tinged with satisfaction at having provoked that kind of reaction.

Bridget was laughing softly and quietly. "Dear Connie," she said quietly. "You really are a loyal old thing, aren't you?"

Connie looked curiously down at her, and Bridget's free hand came up suddenly and cupped her face, pulling it down and kissing her lips softly and lingeringly. Connie's face flamed at the touch, but Bridget laughed against her lips and pulled away.

"We'll be late for Composition if we don't hurry," she said, and that was the end of the incident.

After all, Connie reasoned, kissing was like holding hands. It was frowned on as soppiness, and not considered good form to do in public, but just as it was an open secret that Bill and Clarissa, and Daphne and Mary-Lou, for four, walked hand in hand whenever they weren't under too much public scrutiny, other girls probably exchanged kisses when the occasion demanded. It was silly to think too much on it. After all, Connie kissed Ruth all the time, or at least she had until this term…

Her mind drifted back to her twin, and she barely noticed that Bridget reacted to her abstraction by becoming more distant by the moment, and shrugged her away when she tried to help her into her dressing gown that night. Connie was a little hurt, until she remembered Ruth doing the same thing and Bridget's coolness faded into insignificance compared to the deeper rejection.

The next day the coldness between the friends was more apparent, and Connie's attempts at reconciliation were brushed away with instructions to go moon after her twin, if that was what she wanted. It was almost a relief to have an excuse to be briefly separated from Bridget, although Connie wasn't sure if that was because of the kiss or because Bridget's temper was even more painful than usual. She snarled at girls and mistresses alike, and seemed almost satisfied to be given lines or scoldings in response.

Forgiveness was only granted to Connie when Bridget needed someone to help her mock Maureen in the forbidden fifth form music rooms. Connie hesitated for a moment, wondering why it was so deadly important to her friend to act against the Fifth whenever possible, then remembered how much she had missed Bridget's prickly, affectionate presence, and fell. Besides… she was bored alone, and Ruth had never wanted to do anything in the slightest bit naughty. Bridget's careless lawlessness was fascinating by contrast.

She regretted it the moment Moira stormed into the room. When the head of the fifth ordered her to get out, she got out.

And then… worse regrets, and guilt.

Connie leaned against the door of the music room and hated herself. Maureen's singing in the next room had spluttered off as Moira's shouting rose, punctuated by Bridget's shriller, knife-edge voice. Connie knew she was probably imagining that the door was shaking under her hands. Or… She jerkily scrubbed her hands against her tunic skirt, trying to rub off the icy dampness, and ignoring their trembling.

This was a nonsensical way to behave. She might have scuttled out of the room like a scolded child, but she wasn't as scared of old Moira as all that. After all, Moira might be head of the venerated Fifth, but she was hardly as old or tall as Connie herself was. Let that witch raise her voice to Ruth in front of Connie, and she would face the consequences.

Connie balled her hand into fists to control the shaking, as another storm of shrieking welled up inside the music room. Bridget was as sharp as a knife and had the temper to match. Connie had only left her in there because Bridget wasn't anything like Ruth, and besides, Moira was her own sister, the quarrel was private between them…

She felt her gorge rise, and choked it down, tears of nausea in her eyes. She had never seen anyone look as furious as Moira had, and over a silly joke. How could Bridget bear it, to be treated like that by her own sister? And how could she bear to hate her back so much? If Ruth had ever spoken to her like that… if she ever felt like that about Ruth…

She blinked hard, and all in all, it wasn't much of a surprise to see her twin, looking at her with finely-drawn brows raised to crease her forehead. After all, they had always been sensitive to each other's thoughts – until a few months ago. It wasn't really so strange, to think she had summoned her. It was only strange that she wasn't constantly around, considering how obsessively she was in Connie's thoughts.

"Connie! What's happening?" Ruth glanced nervously at the music room. "You haven't been provoking Moira, have you?"

Connie looked at her sister, the big eyes in the pale reproachful face, the soft corn-coloured hair framing the fine features. Ruth had always been the prettier twin, but Connie had been too devoted to her to care much. Being broad and solid had only meant that she had been naturally built to be the protector of the pair, conveniently sturdy, that was all. Besides, she'd always taken pleased pride in Ruth's fairness and delicacy, as if it had somehow been her property.

She wanted to throw up again at the thought.

"Your head girl is having a nice sisterly discussion with Bridget," she said, biting off each word. "Maybe you should go in. I'm sure Moira would like to give you a little demonstration in how to treat a sister in the Fourth form – although you're doing rather well yourself."

Ruth's eyes filled with tears. "Connie, how could you say that?"

Connie shrugged a shoulder, staring hard at the carpet runner that protected the corridor. There was dust caught in the thick texture, she realised. The maids were being slack. She registered the change in air pressure that was her sister slouching against the wall next to her, the brush of a sleeve against her own, as she switched her attention to a jar of flowers on a hallside table. They definitely needed freshening, although she supposed that was a second form responsibility, not the maids.

"Why do Moira and Bridget hate each other so much?" she asked when at last she ran out of things in the corridor to think about.

"Oh, I'm sure they don't _hate_ each other. They couldn't. Not _sisters_." Ruth's voice trailed off. Behind the door, Moira's voice had hissed down into near inaudibility, and Bridget for her part sounded close to hysteria. "I wish Darrell or Sally was still head. Moira's been impossible to get along with all term. She's all right, really, she knows what she's doing and organises everything," she amended hastily, appearing to remember that criticising her head to a lower form member might be disloyal, "but she puts everyone's backs up. It's been a horrid term. She talks to us if we're stupid little children, and she has such a frightfully hot temper."

"So does Bridget." Connie resisted the temptation to finger her cheek where the bruise from Bridget's blow still lingered, because that would look like she was deliberately inviting Ruth to ask about it, and that would be a breach of faith in some way. An odd thought, that she owed more loyalty to her friend than to her sister in the matter. She had always assumed her full loyalty belonged to the twin who was, for whatever reason, talking to her again. Maybe she really was unhappy in the Fifth form, with a bad-tempered head girl and without anybody who cared enough to watch over her.

She could feel Ruth turn to look directly at her, but she kept her own gaze fixed on the wilting flowers. "You're not truly intimate friends with that awful Bridget, are you? Only Moira says -"

"Oh, I care so very much what that beastly Moira has to say. Listen to her – quite the loving, tender sister, screeching at Bridget like a harridan. No wonder you admire her and seek her advice. You've probably been taking tips."

"Connie!" Ruth grabbed her twin's shoulders, and Connie was startled into looking at her. Ruth was weeping openly, making no attempt to wipe away the fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She always cried like a little girl, Connie noted absently, big unrestrained tears. She had the terrible impulse to get out a handkerchief and instruct Ruth to blow. "I miss you so terribly. Do you think I like this, having to push you away all the time?"

"Nobody that I can see is forcing you."

"No… but… but…" Ruth dropped her hands from Connie's shoulders and fumbled in her belt for her own handkerchief. "Darrell's right, you know. I love you, but we need to separate ourselves and find our own lives, or - can't you see the way we were was wrong? That it was turning us into something ugly and twisted?"

"No. I can't see what's so frightfully wrong with being close to my own twin." Betrayal twisted in Connie's stomach. Darrell… Darrell, who she had laughed with and rode beside, Darrell who had sympathised over all the unpleasantness of the last term, who had a sister of her own, who she had thought liked her and understood. Darrell had done this to her, turned her own twin against her and broken her heart. "Go away, for goodness' sake, Ruth. You don't need me now. Bridget does."

"Connie, you can't speak to me like that."

"What will you do? Write my name in your Punishment Book and give me some lines to learn?"

The hurtful words tasted foul in her own mouth. Ruth was so small and dear, crying into her handkerchief and shaking, and Connie had to concentrate on holding her arms still at her sides to prevent herself from sliding them around her sister's waist and pulling her close, kissing away her tears and making it all better. It occurred to her that she'd never heard Ruth say she loved her and failed to say it back until this argument, but then, even the thought of arguing had been beyond comprehension. It was hardly fair, was it? She hadn't been the one to want this, and she was always the one to be loving and sisterly. These holidays, when Ruth had been so queer, Connie had sobbed out her love and heartbreak over being separated for this term, and Ruth had said nothing at all in response, until Connie had felt half mad with panic.

Perhaps if she hugged and kissed her now, it would work. Perhaps Ruth would relax into her embrace and allow herself to be protected, and everything would be as it was. She could smell Ruth's freshly shampooed hair. She had loved to bury her face in it, lose herself in the soft cleanness of it. The twins' hair was the same ripe wheat colour, but Ruth's was straighter and softer than her own.

Connie screwed her eyes up tight against the sight of Ruth, and breathed through her mouth as she waited for her to give up. Eventually she heard the other girl move away.

She sank further against the music room door. She should go in… She should help Bridget. Her friend. She tried to concentrate on her protective instincts, to imagine that it was Ruth being shouted at and then blur her image into Bridget until she had the courage to break into the room, but it was hard to maintain that image with Bridget's own enraged shrieking audible through the door. Ruth was so soft and sweet, where Bridget was angular.

Besides, Bridget probably despised her for obeying Moira. She'd thrown her friendship away as well as her sister's attempt at reconciliation.

The shouting cut off abruptly, as the door slammed into Connie's back. She stumbled forward, and Moira crashed bodily into her. Connie grasped the other girl's arm to haul herself back into balance.

Moira blinked at her. "Oh… Connie." Her lips were the queerest colour Connie had ever seen, somewhere between pink and grey, and her eyes were burning painfully in her blood-drained face. She stared rather blankly at Connie, as if trying to work out why she was standing with her back to the music room door, and then shook her head slightly. Her grey eyes, darker than Bridget's, came back into focus. "Keep away from Bridget, I warn you." Her tones were oddly flat, not her usual dictatorial tone at all, and if Connie hadn't had a better idea of her personality, she would have suspected she was trying not to cry. "My sister's not quite normal."

Connie felt a prickle of heat under her breastbone. How dare Moira… her own sister… Ruth, first, and then… But after all, she had abandoned Bridget herself, she reminded herself with sickening clarity. She turned on Moira at the thought.

"I'm capable of choosing my own friends. You've enough to do, bullying the Fifth form, without bothering yourself over lowly Fourth formers. We can look after each other – Bridget is my business now." She shoved past Moira into the music room, the door banging behind her.

Shutting the entire Fifth form out.

Bridget was on her knees, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach and her head almost down to the floorboards, making high-pitched sobbing sound that ripped through her thin body. Connie dropped to her own knees and put an arm around her, her own desire to cry dissolving at the opportunity to protect and comfort a girl who needed her.

"Don't cry - don't cry like that, dearest, you'll make yourself ill."

Bridget looked up, pale hair falling over her face, and Connie realised her friend's eyes were completely dry and that she was laughing, not crying. Faintly alarmed, she tried to remember what to do for hysteria. All she could think of as a cure was to slap the victim, but she couldn't bear to slap someone who seemed suddenly so fragile. She crushed her tight instead, burying Bridget's head on her breast, rocking her and crooning endearments. It worked, as it had worked the last time Bridget broke down. And Connie was hungry, so hungry, for the feel of another girl in her arms, someone smaller and fragile who needed to be held and cosseted. She ached sweetly as she cuddled and soothed.

Bridget stopped laughing at last, and started to weep instead. She clawed her way up Connie, pushing a face wet with tears into Connie's neck. The gesture felt strange, Bridget's face damp and hot and almost too intimate against her throat, but Connie was incapable of shoving her away. She caressed her friend's hair instead.

"I thought you'd left me. Moira ruins everything - I hate her, I hate her."

"Sssh." Connie rubbed her fingers in the nape of Bridget's neck. "I won't leave you, Bridget. You're my friend now."

"You should be my sister, not that hateful beast." Bridget's voice was unsteady, broken by desperate gulps for air. "I'd be a better sister to you than Ruth, too. I'd never cast you aside or make you feel rotten for loving me too much. Why can't you love me instead of Ruth?"

"Of course I love you," Connie soothed, the words coming automatically.

"Truly? We'll be each other's sisters, then, and spite the ones we have?" Bridget uncurled her head to look up into Connie's face. She was only an inch away, and the irises of her queer eyes looked even lighter when the actual whites of her eyes were reddened with tears. Connie wanted to flinch away from the gaze, but she didn't dare. Somehow, she didn't like to risk Bridget's temper, after hearing her shout at her sister like that. Her face still ached from the last blow.

She knelt motionless for a moment, held by that burning white gaze, and was conscious of elation beginning to well up through all her other feelings. Bridget needed her love, truly needed her.

"Truly," she said, and meant it.

Bridget flashed into light under her tears – not sunlight, something harsher and stronger. "I love you, too." She pressed her mouth against the other girl's so hard that it almost didn't feel like a kiss, just an almost painful pressure of teeth through lips. Connie stiffened at the touch. This wasn't, she was certain, an innocent exchange of kisses such as might be blinked at between special friends, although she couldn't be quite positive of where the difference lay. Bridget was so fierce…

There was no harm in it, she reassured herself. There was a certain wild fluttering at the base of her ribcage, at the knowledge that she was being kissed, not pressing the kisses on a more passive sister. Bridget really wanted this, was deadly serious in her caress… Connie relaxed, cradling Bridget's face in the palm of one hand while she held her close with the other.

Bridget made a queer noise in response, the pressure of her lips changing, and to her shock Connie felt something hot and wet lapping against her own lips. She opened them in surprise, and felt Bridget's tongue slide into her mouth, flicking against her own tongue for just a brief moment, before Bridget pulled her head away.

Her pupils were very black in the smutty paleness of her eyes, watching her friend carefully, judging her reaction. Connie blinked her own eyes, having no idea what to say. She was shaking again, she realised, and there was an odd tight sensation deep within.

"Does your twin know how to kiss you like that?" Bridget asked, her voice quiet and intense all at once, the air expelled quickly and wetly with each word. She touched the tip of her tongue against her own lips, and Connie shuddered deep inside, not answering. "Did you want her to, Connie?"

Connie dropped her head in her hands, covering herself from the sight of her friend. She felt a gentle hand caressing her hair, soothing her.

"Don't worry, Connie dear. I understand better than you think. And you're not Ruth's now – you're mine, _my_ friend, _my_ sister. And if you ever kiss her or anyone else like that, I'll kill you both." Connie felt movement and a sudden cessation of warmth, and looked up to see Bridget on her feet, her hand extended downwards.

"Come on. Queen Moira will have reported me to Miss Williams by now – for all I care. But we'd better clear out." Her manner was completely as normal.

Connie accepted the outstretched hand, and rose to her feet. There didn't seem to be much else to do.

She still didn't understand quite what had happened. All she knew was that whatever hold Ruth had on her, was gone. And instead...

She held tightly to Bridget's hand, and wondered if this tight, elated feeling was happiness.


End file.
